


Chapter 3 "A Sword of Air and Darkness" The Truth We Think We Know

by Chibojan



Category: Loki - Fandom, The Avengers, Thor (Movies), Thor: Tales of Asgard, loki and thor - fandom
Genre: Abuse, Backstory, Big Brothers, Brothers, Child, Childhood, Gen, M/M, Protection, Protective Mother, recovered memory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-21
Updated: 2016-05-21
Packaged: 2018-06-09 20:44:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6922729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chibojan/pseuds/Chibojan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>***Trigger warning for scene of child abuse and parental dysfunction. If you would like to read the story I have marked the beginning and end of the sensitive matter with bold type ***</p><p>Loki, who does not suffer anything patiently,  is struggling against a physical manifestation of his shattered self. Thor is searching for answers, becoming more and more convinced that Loki was not responsible for much that he suffers for. Is Bal there to aid or harm? Who is he - and who is Loki? More to the point - what is Loki?</p><p> A venture into their shared past yields more questions than answers, but Thor is hunting the truth and he won't stop until he finds it, even though the things he is uncovering are disturbing.</p><p>There is no happy lovemaking in this chapter but - onward!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chapter 3 "A Sword of Air and Darkness" The Truth We Think We Know

I failed my watch over Thor's dreams and fell asleep. Sometime in the night he had reached out and bundled me to him like a child does a favorite toy he sleeps with and when I woke up feeling as if all the flames of Hell were burning me, it took me a moment or two to get free.  


_Sick_ , I thought; _probably they're trying to poison me. It won't work but it would be nice if I never had to eat their cooking again._  


I went to the inner chamber to wash my face and made it in time not to vomit all over myself and the attendant furnishings. The nausea came up suddenly, a terrible griping pain, and there is, of course, nothing so comfortable as to throw up when one has eaten little or nothing - I was sure my lungs were coming up. It finally ceased and I was grateful I had not awakened Thor, who would have done everything in his power to help me, none of which would have actually done so. He had been frantic when I was so unaccountably ill with fever.  


I remembered hanging over the side of the bed, puking helplessly into a bucket Bal had wisely placed there.  


"Loki, are you ill?"   


_What does it fucking look like, brother?_ I wanted to yell, but I couldn't. I had very little air right then. He sat on the bed next to me and tried to hold my head up, which had unhappy results and then tried give me something to drink. "Leave me," I gasped.  


"I will not. I have never seen you so ill. Let me -"  


"No," I said. If I had had my power I would have knocked him off the bed. "Leave me be."  


"I shall fetch Bal, then," and I nodded. Please. Yes. Fetch anyone you like, just let me disembowel myself in peace.  


It was well, though, for Bal did indeed know a few things. "It's infection, this. Here, lad, let's wipe your face. I know you're not up for it, but if you can get down a mouthful of this, it'll ease you. " He had brought one of his concoctions with him. I didn't think I could swallow water but when he held it to my lips - with Thor trying desperately to be both beside me and stay out of Bal's way, with predictable success - it smelled like all the cool breezes of the forests and the very smell eased my sickness.  I thought dimly I would greatly like to learn from him and he said, "Just a bit of herb lore, nothing grand."

He'd heard me. I looked up and his eyes beseeched me. It had gone right past Thor. My walls are high, so it did not reach my mind but he had responded, as we who have SIght sometimes do without meaning to. I let it go. Whatever he was, and I was sure he was more than he claimed, he meant me no harm - at least I didn't think so.  And his scarred hands were surprisingly tender. He had always been good to me, I thought, and I have no idea why. 

"He is passing out," Thor said with an edge of panic.

"That's naught but healin' sleep, my Lord. No fear. Needs sleep, he does, poor lad. He's worst hurt where I canna mend him, more's the pity."

Remembering that, I wished he was here - he had left us for a bit to attend to a "bit of family uproar". He had not let me thank him. "It's what I do, Lord Loki.  My job, you needn't say thanks for that. " 

I sat down on the stone bench and held a wet towel to my face. My hands burned and I thought, _Oh, my body is a wonderland, look at this._ The skin had taken on that greyish color before it turns to blue. Just what I needed.  


It always itches and burns when it happens, and if it is one of those times when the Jotun markings wrap their evil tendrils around my body, it is like being covered in nettles. I may be Jotun but my body does not love it.  


This would be one of those times, I thought disgustedly  - but I was wrong. This was different. Pain suddenly crackled up my arms and the Jotun markings appeared faster than they ever had, they raced up my arms and the bas-relief of the lines were deeper than they had ever been. I could feel them coming up from my feet, up my legs, as if something inside me was clawing its way out.  


I yelped; I could not help it. I tried to get to my feet and the pain slammed me to the floor. The markings on my legs burned their way around my thighs and then ripped into my groin, which they had never done before.  It felt as if someone had taken a chisel to my flesh and was slowly carving patterns into it. It tore its way between my legs and wrapped around my buttocks and hips. I clawed at them, for the pain carried a terrible, maddening itch, like some kind of burning acid.  


Thor was suddenly there, and nearly tripped over me.  


"Loki, what is this?" he said and tried to pick me up - I elbowed him.  


"Don't touch me!" I cried.  


"What can I do, tell me what to do!"  


"Kill me," I snarled. I was doubled up now, it was burning its way up my back. I raked my fingers across my belly, where a new tree of agony was growing and Thor grabbed my hands.  


"You will make it worse," he said.  


"It cannot be worse!" I spat. "Let go, damn it!"  


"No," Thor said, both  my hands in one of his. "Try to breathe, Loki."  


"You...oh God!"  I pushed up from the floor - there was blood smeared where I had lain and that frightened me.  


Thor tried to pick me up, and I resisted - I wanted to die right here, here was fine, I didn't need to go elsewhere - and so he half-carried, half-dragged me into the shower chamber, with its gilded swans' heads mocking my torment.  Water poured down on us. Thor pinned me down on the stone floor but he had his knee under my head to cushion it, and even though I was cursing him in three languages, one of which did not exist and I was making it up, he did not loose me.  He was right, too, for while I was still in pain, the water stilled the maddening itch.  


"Stop fighting me, Loki. I know it hurts, my own. It's almost over, it must be. You have to stop fighting, damn it!"  


We were both half-naked, and the water was cold and while I was past caring, it must have been uncomfortable for him. He was right; once the cruel whipmarks had reached my face - which I would have clawed off my skull had my hands been free- it stopped. Just stopped, and there I lay in all my Jotun hideousness, in my brother's lap, shaking.  


Thor let me go long enough to get the icy water turned off.  He grabbed a big linen sheet from the press outside and brought it and wrapped it around me. I couldn't get up. I lay breathing in great hoarse gasps and Thor, afraid to touch me anywhere, stroked my hair. His own was hanging down in wet strings and I wanted to gather it back for him, I wanted to crawl into his great arms like I had as a child and have him rock me and say, "It's all right, Loki. Brother has you now."  


But I didn't. I just lay there on the floor, which felt rather good on my skin, and thought: _Here is a picture of our lives. Loki, the freak, goes mad with pain (or rage or sorrow, put what you like there) and fights and curses Thor like an enemy. And instead of slapping him into another realm, Thor just stays on, comforting and loving him._  


"Of the two of us, Thor," I said as he wiped my face gently with the sheet, "You are madder than I. Why do you do this? I am not worth so much trouble."  


"If your skin was not bleeding, I would put the mark of my hand on your ass for that," he said grimly. "Stop talking and be still. It's already fading."  


"You'll be cold," I said, putting my head down on my folded arms.  


"I do not get cold," he reminded me gently. "I do not get cold, or ill or have hideous things happen to my body, and if I could give you that immunity, I would. It would be easier to suffer than see you in torment."  


"It will say, LOKI STOP FIGHTING on my tombstone," I said. He grinned.  


"That, or I PUT THOR IN THE MADHOUSE, " he said. He put his hand lightly on my shoulder. "Better?"  


"Yes. You were right, it's going away." That too was something I was familiar with, the feeling of the markings sinking back inside my body. But it did not hurt - ached a little, that was all.  


"Can you bear for me to lift you?"  


"I can get up," I said but that was a lie. I was exhausted. Thor picked me up - it seemed to me in the last few months he had done nothing else. It was undignified. I was a warrior too- but a broken one. And I didn't really care. It is a feeling we all crave, I think, to be lifted off our feet and be carried, to be held in the strength of another's arms, to no longer bear one's heavy adulthood on one's weary legs but to be lifted up. Rescued. I used to think in that den of torment into which I fell from the bridge, I used to dream of an eagle coming to sweep me up, rending my enemies and bringing me safe home.  There is no rescuing eagle for any of us - but for me, undeserving, there was my brother.  


The blood stopped seeping as the blueish color faded. I put on the cotton sleeping-trousers Thor threw me and let it go at that. I sat back against the headboard.  Thor had raked his hair back with his fingers and brought me wine. "This is not right," he said.  


"I will attest to that," I said. "It's lovely, isn't it? Perhaps you could exhibit me."  


"Shut up, Loki. I have been over this and over this in my mind. I hadn't told you this, because I knew you'd be displeased but when you were so ill - well, Bal knew a healer. We brought her to you, secretly, and I think if we had not you would have died."  


"Why secret? Why would I be displeased?"  


"She was Jotun," Thor said.  


"Ah, a monster healer for a monster, that makes sense. And could have gotten you banished again and we know how well that worked out last time - although it was my fault."  


"Let's not travel old ground. Bal couldn't turn the fever and thought it might be something to do with your Jotun blood. It didn't, as it turned out, and the healer thought we had lied about you until she saw - well, you did this, a bit, but not so bad. I told her how you came to us - I told father's version - and she was contemptuous. "There is Jotun blood here," she said, "but this is not a Jotun. He is a half-breed, if that. There is Asgardian here, and there are other things too. Those eyes are not Asgardian nor Jotun, and see here, down his spine, this dark line? That is more like the Istgardi, the Dark Elves.  There is a soft blood in him, some mortal race, that opens the doorway for illness. Mongrel, he is."  


"That was nice," I put in. "And I was naked, too. Thank you, brother."  


"She was a healer, Loki, do please not quibble. I wasn't pleased about it myself, but I needed her. This is important. If a Jotun says you are not Jotun, you are not. She had no reason to lie, and she took a risk in coming. It makes sense, does it not?"  


"It does, yes. Which means that Odin lied - which does not exactly stun me. But it begs the question still of where he got me and why he kept me. How many half-breeds do you see among us? Among the Jotun? What kind of mixed-blood creature would have sired me?"  


"I don't know. But she was sure and Bal - Loki, I think he knows more than he says. I think he is more than he claims to be, but I needed him too and he's never done you or I harm. I caught him whispering words over you once when you were out of your head and you went back to sleep. He knew how to treat you. But he denies it and I will not force him, not yet."  


"I think you're right," I said. "It had never made sense to me but like many things, I did not question what Fa - what Odin told me." I looked at my hands. "What kind of cruelty is in him to do this?" I asked. "Why spring such a terrible thing on me and it is not even true, what purpose did it serve but to invite disaster? I would have gone all my life happy to be - happy just to be Loki Odinson, brother of the King, with my books and my horses and maybe..I don't know...a family," I said, mumbling a little. That seemed absurd now.  


"I know that," Thor said. "It was almost as if it - set something in motion." He raked his hair back again and I eyed him.  


"You are keeping something from me," I said. "That doesn't work well for us either."  


"Not really keeping it," he said. "I just do not know how to say it. Loki, you say you do not remember your nightmares. You've had them all your life, even when we were almost grown, and you've always said you didn't remember. Is that true, or did you simply not wish to remember? I know Mother taught you how to do that."  


I looked at him. There is an insight and an intelligence in Thor that I, being quick, often discount. I said, slowly, trying to tell the truth in every word, "Mother taught me that so young  - every person with Sight and power has to do that, or we would go mad - that if I do that, Thor, I do not consciously do it. If there are memories, they are deep. I am not lying."  


Thor reached across and put his heavy arm around me. "You do not ever have to say that again, little brother. I know you are not lying. I have always known when you were lying, you never did it very well - until we fell through the cellar door of Hell and suddenly you were subtle and I was blind. Mother insisted you were possessed and to my shame, I thought she was excusing you in the maddest way. I look back and realize she of all people would have known." He sighed. "At any rate, I thought there might be in those dreams some clue."  


I sat silent. "Give me a moment," I said finally. "Let me try."  


Thor's blue eyes glinted unease. "Loki - "  


"I can do this. I have always been able to, it's born in me, Odin can't touch it."  I put my fingertips on my temples and began to breathe slowly. The quilt on the bed was covered with stars and moons and fantastic creatures, stories from old illustrated in a million tiny stitches, colours that changed and glittered, impossible colours, and thread like silken light. Our mother had embroidered it for us as children, to delight us, and she stitched magic into it so her boys - always her boys - would sleep well. I hadn't seen it in years but Bal had routed it out from whatever box it was in and put it on the bed. I picked out a bright star and focused on it. The world began to blur.  


I went back. Doors opened and closed and scenes of my life were behind each one. This last year, the door swung upon with a threatening creak and I slammed it shut. Not now. Not yet.  


I found a door I thought was likely and opened it.  


_I am six. I have a pony named Aena. My brother puts me up on her and rides slowly on his bigger mount so I can keep up. "That's very good, Loki, your hands are nice and quiet. Heels down a bit. There you go."_  


_Pleasing Thor. Being like Thor. The days are warm and sunlit. The nights are cozy: I sleep with  my brother under our magic blanket. It is enchanted, Mama says. She always kisses us four times at night: "One for my big boy, one for my small, another for the little one, and another for the tall!"_  


**But there are bad things. I hide them. I forget them.  
BEGIN TRIGGER WARNING **

_We are playing. I make the blocks float and Thor builds a great fortress, floating like Asgard.  Terror falls on me and I look up, the blocks falling - it is Father and he is black with rage, rage and something else I am too little to understand. I cannot hear the words, perhaps I never did but he and Mama are quarrelling. Thor puts his arms around me, then puts me behind him. Father pushes him aside. He grabs me by one arm. It hurts._  


_"I have told you not to do this! Not to play like this! It is wicked! Hear me?" He has me in the air, now, shaking me. My head snaps back. Suddenly there is an explosion, a pitcher explodes and he curses._

_"It was an accident," Thor cries - he knows I break things sometimes._

_I am ripped out of the air and my mother has me, she has both of us somehow, Thor and I, in her arms._  


_"Never touch my children again," she hisses. Her hair lifts and blows in the still room. "Mine, mine to me, Odin! Never touch my sons again or I will bring you down off that throne and that right quickly!"_  


_Thor is not crying. I mustn't cry either. My arm hurts. My father says, "You must understand, it is for Thor's sake -"_

_"Get away from me and do not approach me until I give you leave," she snarls. "You thief, you liar!"  The great mirror shatters and she says, "And I did that. On purpose!" and sweeps out with us._  


_Mama gives me a cup. It smells like sleep. She is holding Thor, rocking him. Rocking me. There is a man in the room whose face I can't see._

_"Once he's asleep I'll set that," he said. So I go to sleep. But we don't have our quilt and the dreams come for me - and it is all darkness, even now. Except one thing: blood on snow. Blood glittering as it freezes and green eyes not mine._  


**_I wake screaming and Thor is there..._  
** END TRIGGER WARNING ****

"Loki! Loki!"  


Thor had me across the bed. I tasted blood, I'd bitten my tongue. My head hurt. _I came back too fast_ , I thought dimly.  


"What have I done?" I asked.  


"You had a fit. A seizure. Something. You - Loki, was that the nightmare?" Thor was pale and I'd never seen him so. I was still not quite back. It interested me mildly, as did the candlelight. I thought I might follow it, it was a pleasant color.  


Had I talked ? Apparently so, from the look on Thor's face, which kept melting into an eight year old's. _Odd. This is rare_ , I thought distantly. I held him off a moment and picked up the pieces of myself I had left scattered.

"No," I said with difficulty. "Just a memory. I remembered only one thing from the dream - I do know that it's always been the same dream, though. Except for the ones I have now, those are new and different, but I remember them." This, this was just a memory.  


"I didn't remember that," he said hoarsely. "But you were - you - I saw it, Loki. And now I do remember it. He broke your arm, in front of me. He was sorry for it, he brought us both a puppy the next day. How could I forget?."  


"Thief and liar," I said thoughtfully. "Strange, I don't remember the puppies."  


"They were hounds. Dar and Gara, we named them."  


"I begin to. A bit. So much is lost - "  


"Loki," Thor said. "I did not remember that. But now I do. And - I think there is more - that you hold the key to some of my memories and I to yours. Myself, I remember only happiness - but that happened. I know it did."  He reached out and ran his hand over my upper left arm. Just above the elbow there was a bump, the way bones leave a bump when they knit not too well - not on the Aesir, of course, but on mongrels like me. He rubbed it with his thumb, his brows drawn down on his beautiful face (and he is beautiful, I forget to say that too often). "You wouldn't go to Father for a long time," he said, slowly, picking up the words one by one as if they were heavy.  "and so I would not, either. The puppies didn't make a difference. When we saw him I would put you behind me and glare at him. And...and it broke his heart."  


"Because of you, not me, Thor."  


"I don't know. I don't know, Loki. He said it broke his heart and so I forgave him. Loki, what have I done, asking you to remember?"  


I crawled over to him and laid down in his lap. I didn't care about dignity now. "Everything you have ever done," I said wearily, "has always been to save - me, someone, a world. So this will be no different.  But I can't remember anything else, not now and you can't bear it. I know the sun is coming up -"  


"Loki, sleep, my own. I do not care if I ever sleep again." He got my hand and knitted his fingers in mine. He held them up so I could see them, my fingers intertwined with his. "We are wandering in a forest of lies, little brother, but this - this is the truth I cling to."  


**Author's Note:**

> Some of you may notice Bal has regained the "h's" in his speech. Never, never create a character who drops his "h's." I didn't have the strength to continue. 
> 
> The abusive scene is a bit of exorcism, and I placed a trigger warning because of it.
> 
> I thank those of you kind enough to read, tardy as this is. And beg your indulgence, it's been a while and I'm sure I've botched something up...


End file.
